LOCATION.--Remsen library. Full shot.
ACTION.--The spotlight on the floor reveals the girl sobbing over the
body of the millionaire and trying to revive him. She screams and cries
out. The portieres are parted and from the lighted hallway we see the
young man, the butler, and the maid, who enter. The young man switches
on the lights and the room is revealed. The three cry out in horror.
The young man, glancing about, leaps toward the partly opened French
windows, drawing a revolver. As the girl sees him she screams again and
denotes terror.
Finishing the thirteenth scene, Kennedy closed the covers and handed
the script to me. Then he confronted Manton once more.
"What became of the locket about the girl's neck? In the manuscript
Miss Lamar is supposed to have a peculiar pendant at her throat. There
was none."
"Oh yes!" The promoter remained a moment in thought. "The doctor took
it off and gave it to Bernie, the prop. boy, who's helping the
electrician."
"Is he outside?"
"Yes."
"Now try to remember, Mr. Manton." Kennedy leaned over very seriously.
"Just who approached closely to Miss Lamar in the making of that
thirteenth scene? Who was near enough to have inflicted a wound, or to
have subjected her, suppose we say, to the fumes of some subtle poison?"
"You think that--" Manton started to question Kennedy, but was given no
encouragement. "Gordon, the leading man, passed through the scene," he
replied, after a pause, "but did not go very near her. Werner was
playing the dead millionaire at her feet."
"Who is Werner?"
"He's my director. Because it was such a small part, he played it
himself. He's only in the two or three scenes in the beginning and I
was here to be at the camera."
While Kennedy was questioning Manton I had been glancing through the
script of the picture. My own connection with the movies had consisted
largely of three attempts to sell stories of my own to the producers.
Needless to remark I had not succeeded, in that regard falling in the
class with some hundreds of thousands of my fellow citizens. For
everybody thinks he has at least one motion picture in him. And so,
though I had managed to visit studios and meet a few of the players,
this was my very first shot at a manuscript actually in production. I
took advantage of Kennedy's momentary preoccupation to turn to Manton.
"Who wrote this script, Mr. Manton?" I asked.
"Millard! Lawrence Millard."
"Millard?" Kennedy and I exclaimed, simultaneously.
"Why, yes! Millard is still under contract and he's the only man who
ever could write scripts for Stella. We--we tried others and they all
flivved."
"Is Millard here?"
Manton burst into laughter, somehow out of place in the room where we
still were in the company of death. "An author on the lot at the
filming of his picture, to bother the director and to change
everything? Out! When the scenario's done he's through. He's lucky to
get his name on the screen. It's not the story but the direction which
counts, except that you've got to have a good idea to start with, and a
halfway decent script to make your lay-outs from. Anyhow--" He sobered
a bit, perhaps realizing that he was going counter to the tendency to
have the author on the lot. "Millard and Stella weren't on speaking
terms. She divorced him, you know."
"Do you know much about the personal affairs of Miss Lamar?"
"Well"--Manton's eyes sought the floor for a moment--"Like everyone
else in pictures, Stella was the victim of a great deal of gossip.
That's the experience of any girl who rises to a position of prominence
and--"
"How were the relations between Miss Lamar and yourself?" interrupted
Kennedy.
"What do you mean by that?" Manton flushed quickly.
"You have had no trouble, no disagreements recently?"
"No, indeed. Everything has been very friendly between us--in a
strictly business way, of course--and I don't believe I've had an
unpleasant word with her since I first formed Manton Pictures to make
her a star."
"You know nothing of her difficulties with her husband?"
"Naturally not. I seldom saw her except at the studio, unless it was
some necessary affair such as a screen ball here, or perhaps in Boston
or Philadelphia or some near-by city where I would take her for
effect--"
Kennedy turned to Mackay. "Will you arrange to keep the people I have
yet to question separate from the ones I have examined already?"
As the district attorney nodded, Kennedy dismissed Manton rather
shortly; then turned again to Mackay as the promoter drew out of
earshot.
"Bring in Bernie, the property-boy, before anyone can tell him to hide
or destroy that locket."
V
AN EMOTIONAL MAZE
Bernie proved to be as stupid a youth as any I had ever seen. He
possessed frightened semi-liquid eyes and overshot ears and hair which
might have been red beneath its accumulation of dust. Without doubt the
boy had been coached by the electrician, because he began to affirm his
innocence in similar fashion the moment he entered the door.
"I don't know nothin', honest I don't," he pleaded. "I was out in the
hall, I was, and I didn't come in at all until the doc. came."
"I suppose you were anxious to see if the cable was becoming hot,"
Kennedy suggested, gravely.
"That's it, sir! We was lookin' at it because it was on the varnish and
the butler he says--"
"Where's the locket?" interrupted Kennedy. "The one Miss Lamar wore in
the scenes."
"Oh!" in disdain, "that thing!" With some effort Bernie fished it from
the capacious depths of a pocket, disentangling the sharp corners from
the torn and ragged lining of his coat.
I glanced at it as Kennedy turned it over and over in his hands, and
saw that it was a palpable stage prop, with glass jewels of the
cheapest sort. Concealing his disappointment, Kennedy dropped it into
his own pocket, confronting the frightened Bernie once more.
"Do you know anything about Miss Lamar's death?"
"No! I don't know nothing, honest!"
"All right!" Kennedy turned to Mackay. "Werner, the director."
Of Stanley Werner I had heard a great deal, through interviews,
character studies, and other press stuff in the photoplay journals and
the Sunday newspaper film sections. Now I found him to be a high-strung
individual, so extremely nervous that it seemed impossible for him to
remain in one position in his chair or for him to keep his hands
motionless for a single instant. Although he was of moderate build,
with a fair suggestion of flesh, there were yet the marks of the artist
and of the creative temperament in the fine sloping contours of his
head and in his remarkably long fingers, which tapered to nails
manicured immaculately. Kennedy seemed to pay particular attention to
his eyes, which were dark, soft, and amazingly restless.
"Who was in the cast, Mr. Werner? What were they playing and just
exactly what was each doing at the time of Miss Lamar's collapse?"
"Well"--Werner's eyes shifted to mine, then to Mackay's, and there was
a subtle lack of ease in his manner which I was hardly prepared to
classify as yet--"Stella Lamar was playing the part of Stella Remsen,
the heroine, and--uh, I see your associate has the script--"
He paused, glancing at me again. When Kennedy said nothing, Werner went
on, growing more and more nervous. "Jack Gordon plays Jack Daring, the
hero--the handsome young chap who runs down the steps and encounters
the butler and the maid in the hall just outside the library--"
"Wasn't it his face in the French windows of the library at the same
time?" Kennedy asked. "Wasn't he the murderer of the father, also?"
"No!" Werner smiled slightly, and there was an instant's flash of the
man's personality, winning and, it seemed to me, calculated to inspire
confidence. "That is the mystery; it is a mystery plot. While the parts
are played by Jack in both cases now, we explain in a subtitle a little
later that the criminal himself, the 'Black Terror,' is a master of
scientific impersonation, and that he changes the faces of his
emissaries by means of plastic surgery and such scientific things, so
that they look like the characters against whom he wishes to throw
suspicion. So while Jack plays the part it is really an accomplice of
the 'Black Terror' who kills old Remsen."
Kennedy turned to me. "A new idea in the application of science to
crime!" he remarked, dryly. "Just suppose it were practicable!"
"The 'Black Terror'" Werner continued, "is played by Merle Shirley.
You've heard of him, the greatest villain ever known to the films? Then
there's Marilyn Loring, the vampire, another good trouper, too. She
plays Zelda, old Remsen's ward, and it's a question whether Zelda or
Stella will be the Remsen heir. Marilyn herself is an awfully nice
girl, but, oh, how the fans hate her!" The director chuckled. "No
Millard story is ever complete without a vamp and Marilyn's been eating
them up. She's been with Manton Pictures for nearly a year."
"You played the millionaire yourself?"
"Yes, I did old Remsen."
I realized suddenly, for the first time, that Werner was still in the
evening clothes he had donned for the part. On his face were streaks in
the little make-up that remained after his frequent mopping of his
features with his handkerchief. Too, his collar was melted. I could
imagine his discomfort.
"Did you have any business with Stella?" Kennedy asked, using the stage
term for the minor bits of action in the playing of a scene. "Did you
move at all while she was going through her part?"
"No, Mr. Kennedy, I was 'dead man' in all the scenes."
"Show me how you lay, if you will."
Obligingly, Werner stretched out on the carpet, duplicating his
positions even to the exact manner in which he had placed his hands and
arms. Rather to my own distaste, Kennedy impressed me to represent, I
am sure in clumsy fashion, the various positions of Stella Lamar. Most
painstakingly Kennedy worked back from the thirteenth scene to the
first, referring to the script and coaxing details of memory from the
mind of Werner.
I grasped Kennedy's purpose almost at once. He was endeavoring to
reproduce the action which had been photographed, so as to determine
just how the poison had been administered. Of course he made no
reference to the tiny scratch and Mackay and I were careful to give no
hint of it to Werner. The director, however, seemed most willing to
assist us. I certainly felt no suspicion of him now. As for Kennedy,
his face was unrevealing.
"When the film in the camera is developed--" I suggested to Kennedy,
suddenly.
He silenced me with a gesture. "I haven't overlooked that, but the
scenes will be from one angle only and in a darkened set. I can
determine more this way."
Somewhat crestfallen, I continued my impersonation of the slain star
not altogether willingly. Soon Kennedy had completed his reconstruction
of the action.
"Who else entered the scene besides Gordon?" he asked.
"The butler and the maid, after the lights were flashed on."
"I'll question the camera men," he announced. "Who are they?"
"Harry Watkins is the head photographer," Werner explained. "He's a
crackerjack, too! One of the best lighting experts in the country. Al
Penny's grinding the other box."
"Let's have Watkins first." Kennedy nodded to Mackay to escort the
director from the room.
Neither Watkins nor Penny were able to add anything to the facts which
Kennedy had gleaned from Manton and Werner. When he had finished his
patient examination of the junior camera man he recalled Watkins and
had both, under his eyes, close and seal the film cartridges which
contained the photographic record of the thirteen scenes. Dismissing
the men, he handed the two black boxes to Mackay.
"Can you arrange to have these developed and printed, quickly, but in
some way so neither negative nor positive will be out of your sight at
any time?"
Mackay nodded. "I know the owner of a laboratory in Yonkers."
"Good! Now let's have the leading man."
Jack Gordon immediately impressed me very unfavorably. There was
something about him for which I could find no word but "sleek."
Learning much from my long association with Kennedy I observed at once
that he had removed the make-up from his face and that he had on a
clean white collar. Since the linen worn before the camera is dyed a
faint tint to prevent the halation caused by pure white, it was a sure
sign to me that he had spruced up a bit. I knew that he was engaged to
Stella. Here in this room she lay dead, under the most mysterious
circumstances. There was little question, in fact, that she had been
murdered. How could he, really loving her, think of such things as the
make-up left on his face, or his clothes?
I had to admit that he was a handsome individual. Perhaps slightly less
than average in height, and very slender, he had the close-knit build
of an athlete. The contour of his head and the perfect regularity of
rather large features made him an ideal type for the screen at any
angle; in close-ups and foregrounds as well as full shots. In actual
life there were little things covered by make-up in his work, such as
the cold gray tint of his eyes and the lines of dissipation about his
mouth.
Kennedy questioned him first about his movements in the different
scenes, then asked him if he had seen or noticed anything suspicious
during the taking of any of them or in the intervals between.
"I had several changes, Mr. Kennedy," he replied. "Part of the time I
was Jack Daring, my regular role, but I was also the emissary who
looked like Daring. I went out each time because I make up the emissary
to look hard. Werner wanted to fool the people a little bit, but he
didn't want them to be positive the emissary was Daring, as would
happen if both make-ups were the same."
"Did you have any opportunity to talk to Miss Lamar?"
"None at all. Werner was pushing us to the limit."
"Did she seem her usual self at the start of the scene?"
"No, she seemed a little out of sorts. But"--Gordon
hesitated--"something had been troubling her all day. She hardly would
talk to me in the car on the way out at all. It didn't strike me that
she acted any different when she went in to take the scene."
"You were engaged to her?"
"Yes." Gordon's eyes caught the body on the davenport before him. He
glanced away hastily, taking his lower lip between his teeth.
"Had you been having any trouble?"
"No--that is, nothing to amount to anything."
"But you had a quarrel or a misunderstanding."
His face flushed slowly. "She was to obtain her final decree early next
week. I wanted her to marry me then at once. She refused. When I
reproached her for not considering my wishes she pretended to be cool
and began an elaborate flirtation with Merle Shirley."
"You say she only pretended to be cool?"
For a few moments Gordon hesitated. Then apparently his vanity loosened
his tongue. He wished it to be understood that he had held the love of
Stella to the last.
"Last night," he volunteered, "we made everything up and she was as
affectionate as she ever had been. This morning she was cool, but I
could tell it was pretense and so I let her alone."
"There has been no real trouble between you?"
The leading man met Kennedy's gaze squarely. "Not a bit!"
Kennedy turned to Mackay. "Mr. Shirley," he ordered.
By a miscalculation on the part of the little district attorney the
heavy man entered the room a moment before Gordon left. They came face
to face just within the portieres. There was no mistaking the
hostility, the open hate, between the two men. Both Kennedy and I
caught the glances.
Then Merle Shirley approached the fireplace, taking the chair indicated
by Kennedy.
"I wasn't in any of the opening scenes," he explained. "I remained out
in the car until I got wind of the excitement. By that time Stella was
dead."
"Do you know anything of a quarrel between Miss Lamar and Gordon?"
Shirley rose, clenching his fists. For several moments he stood gazing
down at the star with an expression on his face which I could not
analyze. The pause gave me an opportunity to study him, however, and I
noticed that while he had heavier features than Gordon, and was a
larger man in every way, ideally endowed for heavy parts, there was yet
a certain boyish freshness clinging to him in subtle fashion. He wore
his clothes in a loose sort of way which suggested the West and the
open, in contrast to Gordon's metropolitan sophistication and
immaculate tailoring. He was every inch the man, and a splendid
actor--I knew. Yet there was the touch of youth about him. He seemed
incapable of a crime such as this, unless it was in anger, or as the
result of some deep-running hidden passion.
Now, whether he was angry or in the clutch of a broad disgust, I could
not tell. Perhaps it was both. Very suddenly he wheeled upon Kennedy.
His voice became low and vibrant with feeling. Here was none of the
steeled self-control of Manton, the deceptive outer mask which Werner
used to cover his thoughts, the nonchalant, cold frankness of Gordon.
"Mr. Kennedy," the actor exclaimed, "I've been a fool, a fool!"
"How do you mean?"
"I mean that I allowed Stella to flatter my vanity and lead me into a
flirtation which meant nothing at all to her. God!"
"You are responsible for the trouble between Miss Lamar and Gordon,
then?"
"Never!" Shirley indicated the body of the star with a quick,
passionate sweep of his hand. Now I could not tell whether he was
acting or in earnest. "She's responsible!" he exclaimed. "She's
responsible for everything!"
"Her death--"
"No!" Shirley sobered suddenly, as if he had forgotten the mystery
altogether. "I don't know anything at all about that, nor have I any
idea unless--" But he checked himself rather than voice an empty
suspicion.
"Just what do you mean, then?" Kennedy was sharp, impatient.
"She made a fool of me, and--and I was engaged to Marilyn Loring--"
"Were engaged? The engagement--"
"Marilyn broke it off last night and wouldn't listen to me, even though
I came to my senses and saw what a fool I had been."
"Was"--Kennedy framed his question carefully--"was your infatuation for
Miss Lamar of long duration?"
"Just a few weeks. I--I took her out to dinner and to the theater
and--and that was all."
"I see!" Kennedy walked away, nodding to Mackay.
"Will you have Miss Loring next?" asked the district attorney.
Kennedy nodded.
Marilyn Loring was a surprise to me. Stella Lamar both on the screen
and in real life was a beauty. In the films Marilyn was a beauty also,
apparently of a cold, unfeeling type, but in the flesh she was
disclosed as a person utterly different from all my preconceived
notions. In the first place, she was not particularly attractive except
when she smiled. Her coloring, hair frankly and naturally red, skin
slightly mottled and pale, produced in photography the black hair and
marble, white skin which distinguished her. But as I studied her, as
she was now, before she had put on any make-up and while she was still
dressed in a simple summer gown of organdie, she looked as though she
might have stepped into the room from the main street of some
mid-Western town. In repose she was shy, diffident in appearance. When
she smiled, naturally, without holding the hard lines of her vampire
roles, there was the slight suggestion of a dimple, and she was
essentially girlish. When a trace of emotion or feeling came into her
face the woman was evident. She might have been seventeen or
thirty-seven.
To my surprise, Kennedy made no effort to elicit further information
concerning the personal animosities of these people. Perhaps he felt it
too much of an emotional maze to be straightened out in this
preliminary investigation. When he found Marilyn had watched the taking
of the scenes he compared her account with those which he had already
obtained. Then he dismissed her.
In rapid succession, for he was impatient now to follow up other
methods of investigation, he called in and examined the remaining
possible witnesses of the tragedy. These were the two extra
players--the butler and the maid, the assistant director, Phelps's
house servants, and Emery Phelps himself. For some unknown reason he
left the owner of the house to the very last.
"Why did you wish these scenes photographed out here?" he asked.
"Because I wanted to see my library in pictures."
"Were you watching the taking of the scenes?"
"Yes!"
"Will you describe just what happened?"
Phelps flushed. He was irritated and in no mood to humor us any more
than necessary. A man of perhaps forty, with the portly flabbiness
which often accompanies success in the financial markets, he was
accustomed to obtaining rather than yielding obedience. A bachelor, he
had built this house as a show place merely, according to the gossip
among newspaper men, seldom living in it.
"Haven't about a dozen people described it for you already?" he asked,
distinctly petulant.
Kennedy smiled. "Did you notice anything particularly out of the way,
anything which might be a clue to the manner in which Miss Lamar met
her death?"
Phelps's attitude became frankly malicious. "If I had, or if any of us
had, we wouldn't have found it necessary to send for Prof. Craig
Kennedy, or"--turning to me--"the representative of the New York Star."
Kennedy, undisturbed, walked to the side of Mackay. "I'll leave Mr.
Phelps and his house in your care," he remarked, in a low voice.
Mackay grinned. I saw that the district attorney had little love for
the owner of this particular estate in Tarrytown.
Kennedy led the way into the living room. Immediately the various
people he had questioned clustered up with varying degrees of anxiety.
Had the mystery been solved?
He gave them no satisfaction, but singled out Manton, who seemed eager
to get away.
"Where is Millard? I would like to talk to him."
"I'll try to get him for you. Suppose--" Manton looked at his watch. "I
should be in at the studio," he explained. "Everything is at a
standstill, probably, and--and so, suppose you and Mr. Jameson ride in
with me in my car. Millard might be there."
Kennedy brightened. "Good!" Then he looked back to catch the eye of
Mackay. "Let everyone go now," he directed. "Don't forget to send me
the samples of the body fluids and"--as an afterthought--"you'd better
keep a watch on the house."
VI
THE FIRST CLUE
Manton's car was a high-powered, expensive limousine, fitted inside
with every luxury of which the mind of even a prima donna could
conceive, painted a vivid yellow that must have made it an object of
attention even on its familiar routes. It was quite characteristic of
its owner, for Manton, as we learned, missed no chance to advertise
himself.
In the back with us was Werner, while the rest of the company were left
to return to the city in the two studio cars which had brought them out
in the morning. The director, however, seemed buried with his
reflections. He took no part in the conversation; paid no attention to
us upon the entire trip.
Manton's mind seemed to dwell rather upon the problems brought up by
the death of Stella than upon the tragedy itself. The Star's photoplay
editor once had remarked to me that the promoter was 90 per cent
"bull," and 10 per cent efficiency. I found that it was an unfair
estimation. With all his self-advertisement and almost obnoxious
personality, Manton was a more than capable executive in a business
where efficiency and method are rare.
"This has been a hoodoo picture from the start," he exclaimed,
suddenly. "We have been jinxed with a vengeance. Some one has held the
Indian sign on us for sure."
Kennedy, I noticed, listened, studying the man cautiously from the
corners of his eyes, but making no effort to draw him out.
"First there were changes to be made in the script, and for those
Millard took his own sweet time. Then we were handed a lot of negative
which had been fogged in the perforator, a thing that doesn't happen
once in a thousand years. But it caught us just as we sent the company
down to Delaware Water Gap. A whole ten days' work went into the
developer at once. Neither of the camera men caught the fog in their
tests because it came in the middle of the rolls. Everything had to be
done over again.
"And accidents! We carefully registered the principal accomplice of the
'Black Terror,' a little hunchback with a face to send chills down your
back. After we had him in about half the scenes of a sequence of action
he was taken sick and died of influenza. First we waited a few days;
then we had to take all that stuff over again.
"Our payroll on this picture is staggering. Stella's three thousand a
week is cheap for her, the old contract, but it's a lot of money to
throw away. Two weeks when she was under the weather cost us six
thousand dollars salary and there was half a week we couldn't do any
work without her. Gordon and Shirley and Marilyn Loring draw down
seventeen hundred a week between them. The director's salary is only
two hundred short of that. All told 'The Black Terror' is costing us a
hundred thousand dollars over our original estimate.
"And now"--it seemed to me that Manton literally groaned--"with Stella
Lamar dead--excuse me looking at it this way, but, after all, it is
business and I'm the executive at the head of the company--now we must
find a new star, Lord knows where, and we must retake every scene in
which Stella appeared. It--it's enough to bankrupt Manton Pictures for
once and all."
"Can't you change the story about some way, so you won't lose the value
of her work?" asked Kennedy.
"Impossible! We've announced the release and we've got to go ahead.
Fortunately, some of the biggest sets are not taken yet."
The car pulled up with a flourish before the Manton studio, which was
an immense affair of reinforced concrete in the upper Bronx. Then, in
response to our horn, a great wide double door swung open admitting us
through the building to a large courtyard around which the various
departments were built.
Here, there was little indication that the principal star of the
company had just met her death under mysterious and suspicious
circumstances. Perhaps, had I been familiar with the ordinary bustle of
the establishment, I might have detected a difference. Indeed, it did
strike me that there were little knots of people here and there
discussing the tragedy, but everything was overshadowed by the aquatic
scene being filmed in the courtyard for some other Manton picture. The
cramped space about the concrete tank was alive with people, a mob of
extras and stage hands and various employees, a sight which held
Kennedy and me for some little time. I was glad when Manton led the way
through a long hall to the comparative quiet of the office building. In
the reception room there was a decided hush.
"Is Millard here?" he asked of the boy seated at the information desk.
"No, sir," was the respectful reply. "He was here this morning and for
a while yesterday."
"You see!" Manton confronted Kennedy grimly. "This is only one of the
things with which we have to contend in this business. I give Millard
an office but he's a law unto himself. It's the artistic temperament.
If I interfere, then he says he cannot write and he doesn't produce any
manuscript. Ordinarily he cannot be bothered to work at the studio.
But"--philosophically--"I know where to get him as a general thing. He
does most of his writing in his rooms downtown; says there's more
inspiration in the confusion of Broadway than in the wilds of the
Bronx. I'll phone him."
We followed the promoter up the stairs to the second and top floor.
Here a corridor gave access to the various executive offices. Its
windows at frequent intervals looked down upon the courtyard and the
present confusion.
Werner, who had preceded us into the building, now came up. As Manton
bustled into his own office to use the telephone the director turned to
Kennedy, indicating the next doorway.
"This is my place," he explained. "It connects with Manton, on one
side, through his reception room. You see, in addition to directing
Stella Lamar I have been in general charge of production and most of
the casting is up to me."
Kennedy entered after Werner, interested, and I followed. The door
through to the reception room stood open and beyond was the one to
Manton's quarters. I could see the promoter at his desk, receiver at
his ear, an impatient expression upon his face. In the reception room a
rather pretty girl, young and of a shallow-pated type I thought, was
busy at a clattering typewriter. She rose and closed the door upon
Manton, so as not to disturb him.
"The next office on this side is Millard's," volunteered Werner. "He's
the only scenario writer dignified with quarters in this building."
"Manton has other writers, hasn't he?" Kennedy asked.
"Yes, the scenario department is on the third floor across the court,
above the laboratory and cutting rooms."
"Who else is in the building here?"
"There are six rooms on this floor," Werner replied. "Manton, the
waiting room, myself, Millard, and the two other directors. Below is
the general reception room, the cashier, the bookkeepers and
stenographers."
As Manton probably was having trouble obtaining his connection, and as
Kennedy continued to question Werner concerning the general arrangement
of the different floors in the different buildings about the
quadrangle, all uninteresting to me, I determined to look about a bit
on my own hook. I was still anxious to be of genuine assistance to
Kennedy, for once, through my greater knowledge of the film world.
Strolling out into the corridor, I went to the door of Millard's room.
To my disappointment, it was locked. Continuing down the hall, I stole
a glance into each of the two directors' quarters but saw nothing to
awaken my suspicion or justify my intrusion. Beyond, I discovered a
washroom, and, aware suddenly of the immense amount of dust I had
acquired in the ride in from Tarrytown, I entered to freshen my hands
and face at the least. It was a stroke of luck, a fortunate impulse.
The amount of money to be made in the movies had resulted, in the case
of Manton, in luxurious equipment for all the various departments of
his establishment. I had noticed the offices, furnished with a richness
worthy of a bank or some great downtown institution. Now, in the
lavatory, immaculate with its white tile and modern appointments, I saw
a shelf literally stacked, in this day of paper, with linen towels of
the finest quality.
As I drew the water, hot instantly, my eye caught, half in and half out
of the wire basket beneath the stand, one of the towels covered with
peculiar yellow spots. Immediately my suspicions were awakened. I
picked it up gingerly. At close range I saw that the spots were only
chrome yellow make-up, but there were also spots of a different nature.
I did not stop to think of the unlikeliness of the discovery of a real
clue under these circumstances, analyzed afterward by Kennedy. I folded
the towel hastily and hurried to rejoin him, to show it to him.
I found him with Werner, waiting for the results of Manton's efforts to
locate Millard. Almost at the moment I rejoined the two a boy came to
summon Werner to one of the sets out on the stage itself. Kennedy and I
were alone. I showed him the towel.
At first he laughed, "You'll never make a detective, Walter," he
remarked. "This is only simple coloring matter-Chinese yellow, to be
exact. And will you tell me, too"--he became ironical--"how do you
expect to find clues of this sort here for a murder committed in
Tarrytown when all the people present were held out there and examined,
when we are the first to arrive back here?
"Yellow, you know, photographs white. Chinese yellow is used largely in
studios in place of white in make-up because it does not cause
halation, which, to the picture people, is the bane of their existence.
White is too glaring, reflects rays that blur the photography sometimes.
"If you will notice, the next time you see them shooting a scene, you
will find the actors' faces tinged with yellow. Even tablecloths and
napkins and 'white' dresses are frequently colored a pale yellow,
although pale blue has the actinic qualities of white for this purpose,
and is now perhaps more frequently used than yellow."
I was properly chastened. In fact, though I did not say much, I almost
determined to let him conduct his case himself.
Kennedy saw my crestfallen expression and understood. He was about to
say something encouraging, as he handed back the towel, when his eye
fell on the other end of it, which, indeed, I myself had noticed.
He sobered instantly and studied the other spots. Indeed, I had not
examined them closely myself. They were the very faint stains of some
other yellow substance, a liquid which had dried and did not rub off as
the make-up, and there were also some small round drops of dark red,
almost hidden in the fancy red scrollwork of the lettering on the
towel, "Manton Pictures, Inc." The latter had escaped me altogether.
"Blood!" Kennedy exclaimed. Then, "Look here!" The marks of the pale
yellow liquid trailed into a slender trace of blood. "It looks as if
some one had cleaned a needle on it," he muttered, "and in a hurry."
I remembered his previous remark. The murder had been in Tarrytown. We
had just arrived here.
"Would anyone have time to do it?" I asked.
"Whoever used the towel did so in a hurry," he reiterated, seriously.
"It may have been some one afraid to leave any sort of clue out there
at Phelps's house. There were too many watchers about. It might have
seemed better to have run the risk of a search. With no sign of a wound
on Miss Lamar's person, it was pretty certain that neither Mackay nor I
would attempt to frisk everyone. It was not as though we were looking
for a revolver, if she were shot, or a knife, if she had been stabbed.
And"--he could not resist another dig at me--"and that we should look
in a washroom here for a towel was, well, an idea that wouldn't occur
to anyone but the most amateur and blundering sort of sleuth. It's
beginner's luck, Walter, beginner's luck."
I ignored the uncomplimentary part of his remarks. "Who could have been
in the washroom just before me?" I asked.
Suddenly he hurried through the waiting room to the door to Manton's
office, opening it without ceremony. Manton was gone. We exchanged
glances. I remembered that Werner had preceded us upstairs. "It means
Werner or Manton himself," I whispered, so the girl just behind us
would not hear.
Kennedy strode out to the hall, and to a window overlooking the court.
After a moment he pointed. I recognized both the cars used to transport
the company to the home of Emery Phelps. There was no sign that either
had just arrived, for even the chauffeurs were out of sight, perhaps
melted into the crowd about the tank in the corner.
"They must have arrived immediately behind us," Kennedy remarked. "We
wasted several valuable minutes looking at that water stuff ourselves."
At that moment Werner's voice rose from the reception room below. It
was probable that he would be up to rejoin us again. I remembered that
he had not been at all at ease while Kennedy questioned him in
Tarrytown; that here at the studio he had been palpably anxious to
remain close at our heels. I felt a surge of suspicion within me.
"Listen, Craig," I muttered, in low tones. "Manton had no opportunity
to steal down the hall after the girl closed the door, and--"
"Why not!" he interrupted, contradicting me. "We had our backs to the
door while we were talking with Werner."
"Well, anyhow, it narrows down to Manton and Werner because that is the
washroom for these offices--"
"'Sh!" Kennedy stopped me as Werner mounted the stairs. He turned to
the director with assumed nonchalance. "How long have the other cars
been here?" he asked. "I thought we came pretty fast."
Werner smiled. "I guess those boys had enough of Tarrytown. They rolled
into the yard, both of them, while you and Mr. Jameson and Manton were
stopping to watch the people in the water."
"I see!" Kennedy gave me a side glance. "Where are the dressing rooms?"
he inquired. It was a random shot.
Werner pointed to the end of the hall, toward the washroom. "In the
next building, on this floor--that is, the principals'. It's a rotten
arrangement," he added. "They come through sometimes and use our
lavatory, because it's a little more fancy and because it saves a trip
down a flight of stairs. Believe me, it gets old Manton on his ear."
VII
ENID FAYE
Behind Werner was the assistant director, to whom I had given little
attention at the time of the examination of the various people in the
Phelps library. Even now he impressed me as one of those rare,
unobtrusive types of individuals who seem, in spite of the possession
of genuine ability and often a great deal of efficiency, to lack,
nevertheless, any outstanding personal characteristics. As a class they
are human machines, to be neither liked nor disliked, never intruding
and yet always on hand when needed.
"This is Carey Drexel, my assistant," Werner stated, forgetting that
Kennedy had questioned him at Tarrytown, and so knew him. "There are a
few people I simply must see and I'm tied up, therefore, for perhaps
half an hour; and Manton's downstairs still trying to locate Millard
for you. But Carey's at your disposal, Mr. Kennedy, to show you the
arrangement of the studio and to cooperate with you in any way if you
think there's any possible chance of finding anything to bear upon
Stella's death here."
If Werner was the man who had used the towel, I could see that he was
an actor and a cool villain. Of course no one could know, yet, that we
had discovered it, but the very nonchalance with which it had been
thrown into the basket was a mark of the nerve of the guilty man. It
was more than carelessness. Nothing about the crime had been haphazard.
Kennedy thanked Werner and asked to be shown the studio floor used in
the making of "The Black Terror." Carey led the way, explaining that
there were actually two studios, one at each end of the quadrangle,
connected on both sides by the other buildings; offices and dressing
rooms and the costume and property departments at the side facing the
street; technical laboratories and all the detail of film manufacture
in a four-story structure to the rear. Most of Werner's own picture was
being made in the so-called big studio, reached through the dressing
rooms from the end of the corridor where we stood.
I had been in film plants before, but when we entered the huge
glass-roofed inclosure beyond the long hallway of dressing rooms I was
impressed by the fact that here was a place of genuine magnitude, with
more life and bustle than anything I had ever imagined. The glass had,
however, been painted over, because of late years dark stages, with the
even quality of artificial light, had come into vogue in the Manton
studios in place of stages lighted by the uneven and undependable
sunlight.
The two big sets mentioned by Manton, a banquet hall and a ballroom,
were being erected simultaneously. Carpenters were at work sawing and
hammering. Werner's technical director was shouting at a group of stage
hands putting a massive mirror in position at the end of the banquet
hall, a clever device to give the room the appearance of at least
double its actual length. In one corner several electricians and a
camera man were experimenting with a strange-looking bank of lights. In
the ballroom set, where the flats or walls were all in place, an
unexcited paperhanger was busy with the paraphernalia of his craft,
somehow looking out of his element in this reign of pandemonium.
It seemed hard indeed to believe that any sort of order or system lay
behind this heterogeneous activity, and the incident which took Carey
Drexel away from us only added to the wonder in my mind, a wonder that
anything tangible and definite could be accomplished.
"Oh, Carey!" Another assistant director, or perhaps he was only a
property boy, rushed up frantically the moment he saw Drexel. "Miss
Miller's on a rampage because the grand piano you promised to get for
her isn't at her apartment yet, and Bessie Terry's in tears because she
left her parrot here overnight, as you suggested, and some one taught
the bird to swear." The intruder, a youth of perhaps eighteen, was in
deadly earnest. "For the love of Mike, Carey," he went on, "tell me how
to unteach that screeching thing of Bessie's, or we won't get a scene
today."
Carey Drexel looked at Kennedy helplessly.
With all these troubles, how could he pilot us about? Later we learned
that this was nothing new, once one gets on the inside of picture
making. Props., or properties, particularly the living ones, cause
almost as much disturbance as the temperamental notions of the actors
and actresses. Sometimes it is a question which may become the most
ridiculous.
Kennedy seemed to be satisfied with his preliminary visit to this
studio floor.
"We can get back to Manton's office alone," he told Drexel. "We will
just keep on circling the quadrangle."
Relieved, the assistant director pointed to the door of the
manufacturing building, as the four-story structure in the rear was
called. Then he bustled off with the other youth, quite unruffled
himself.
When we passed through the heavy steel fire door we found ourselves in
another long hallway of fire-brick and reinforced-concrete
construction. Unquestionably there was no danger of a serious
conflagration in any part of Manton's plant, despite the high
inflammability of the film itself, of the flimsy stage sets, of
practically everything used in picture manufacture.
Immediately we entered this building I detected a peculiar odor, at
which I sniffed eagerly. I was reminded of the burnt-almond odor of the
cyanides. Was this another clue?
I turned to Kennedy but he smiled, anticipating me.
"Banana oil, Walter," he explained, with rather a superior manner. "I
imagine it's used a great deal in this industry. Anyway"--a
chuckle--"don't expect chance to deliver clues to you in wholesale
quantities. You have done very well for today."
A sudden whirring noise, from an open door down the hall, attracted us,
and we paused. This, I guessed, was a cutting room. There were a number
of steel tables, with high steel chairs. At the walls were cabinets of
the same material. Each table had two winding arrangements, a handle at
the operator's right hand and one at his left, so that he could wind or
unwind film from one reel to another, passing it forward or backward in
front of his eyes.
There were girls at the tables except nearest the hall. Here a man
stopped now and then to glance at the ribbon of film, or to cut out a
section, dropping the discarded piece into a fireproof can and splicing
the two ends of the main strip together again with liquid film cement
from a small bottle. He looked up as he sensed our presence.
"Isn't it hell?" he remarked, in friendly fashion. "I've got to cut all
of Stella Lamar out of 'The Black Terror,' so they can duplicate her
scenes with another star, and meanwhile we had half the negative
matched and marked for colors and spliced in rolls, all ready for the
printer."
Without waiting for an answer from us, or expecting one, he gave one of
his reels a vicious spin, producing the whirring noise; then grasping
both reels between his fingers and bringing them to an abrupt stop, so
that I wondered he did not burn himself from the friction, he located
the next piece to be eliminated.
We followed the hall into the smaller studio and there found a comedy
company at work. Without stopping to watch the players, ghastly under
the light from the Cooper-Hewitts and Kliegel arcs, we found a
precarious way back of the set around and under stage braces, to the
covered bridge leading once more to the corridor outside Manton's
office.
Now the girl was absent from her place in the little waiting room.
Manton's door stood open. Without ceremony Kennedy led the way in and
dropped down at the side of the promoter's huge mahogany desk.
"I'm tired, Walter," he said. "Furthermore, I think this picture world
of yours is a bedlam. We face a hard task."
"How do you propose to go about things?" I asked.
"I'm afraid this is a case which will have to be approached entirely
through psychological reactions. You and I will have to become familiar
with the studio and home life of all the long list of possible
suspects. I shall analyze the body fluids of the deceased and learn the
cause of death, and I will find out what it is on the towel,
but"--sighing--"there are so many different ramifications, so many--"
Suddenly his eye caught the corner of a piece of paper slid under the
glass of Manton's desk. He pulled it out; then handed it to me.
MEMORANDUM FOR MR. MANTON
Have learned Enid Faye is out of Pentangle and can be engaged for about
twelve hundred if you act quickly. Why not cancel Lamar contract after
"Black Terror," if she continues up-stage?
WERNER.
"I caught the name Lamar," Kennedy explained. Then an expression of
gratification crept into his face. "Miss Lamar was 'up-stage'?" he
mused. "That's a theatrical word for cussedness, isn't it?"
I paid little attention. The name of Enid Faye had attracted my own
interest. This was the little dare-devil who had breezed into the
Pacific Coast film colony and had swept everything before her. Not only
had she displayed amazing nerve for her sex and size, but she had been
pretty and beautifully formed, had been as much at home in a ballroom
as in an Annette Kellermann bathing suit. In less than six months she
had learned to act and had been brought to the Eastern studios of
Pentangle. Now it was possible that she would be captured by Manton,
would be blazoned all over the country by that gentleman, would become
another star of his making.
"Let's go, Walter!" Kennedy, impatient, rose. I noticed that he folded
the little note, slipping it into his pocket.
Out in the hall voices came to us from Werner's office. After some
little hesitation Kennedy opened the door unceremoniously. At the
table, littered with blue prints and drawings and colored plates of
famous home interiors, was the director. With him was Manton. Seated
facing them, in rare good humor, was a fascinating little lady.
The promoter rose. "Professor Kennedy, I want you to meet Miss Enid
Faye, one of our real comers. And Mr. Jameson, Enid, of the New York
Star."
She acknowledged the introduction to Kennedy gracefully. Then she
turned, rising, and rushed to me most effusively, leading me to a
leather-covered couch and pulling me to a seat beside her.
"Mr. Jameson," she purred. "I just love newspaper men; I think they're
perfectly wonderful always. Tell me, do you like little Enid?"
I nodded, confused and unhappy, and as red as a schoolboy.
"That's fine," she went on, in the best modulated and most wonderful
voice I thought I had ever heard. "I like you and I know we're going to
be the best of friends. Tell me, what's your first name?"
"Now, Enid," reproved Manton, in fatherly tones, "you'll have plenty of
time to vamp your publicity later. For the present, please listen to
me. We're talking business."
"Shoot every hair of this old gray head!" she directed, pertly.
She did not move away, however, I could feel the warmth of her, could
catch the delicacy of the perfume she used. I noted the play of her
slender fingers, the trimness of her ankle, the piquancy of a nose
revealed to me in profile--and nothing else.
"This is your chance, Enid," Manton continued, earnestly and rather
eagerly. "You know the film will be the most talked about one this
year. We've got the Merritt papers lined up and that's the best
advertising in the world. Everyone will know you took Stella's place,
and--well, you'll step right in."
She studied the tips of her boots, stretching boyish limbs straight in
front of her, then smoothing the soft folds of her skirt.
"Talk money to me, Mr. Man!" she exclaimed. "Talk the shekels, the
golden shekels."
"We're broke," he protested. "A thousand--"
She shook her head.
Werner broke in, suddenly anxious. "Don't pass up the chance, Enid," he
pleaded. "What can Pentangle do for you? And I've always wanted to
direct you again--"
"I'll make it twelve hundred," Manton interrupted, "if you'll make the
contract personally with me. Then if Manton Pictures--"
"All right!" She jumped to her feet, extending a hand straight forward
to each, the right to Manton, the left to Werner. "You're on!"
I thought that I was forgotten. A wave of jealousy swept over me. After
all, she simply wanted me to write her up. In a daze I heard Manton.
"You're a wise little girl, Enid," he told her. "Play the game right
with me and you'll climb high. The sky's the limit, now. I'll make
you--make you big!"
With a full, warm smile she swung around to me and I knew I was not
being slighted, after all.
"That's what Longfellow said, isn't it, Mr. Jameson?"
"What?" My heart began to beat like a trip hammer.
"Excelsior! Excelsior! It packs them in!"
She laughed so infectiously that we all joined in. Then Manton turned
to Kennedy.
"I've located Millard for you. He's to meet us at my apartment at
seven. It's six-thirty now. And you, Enid"--facing her--"if you'll
come, too, there's another man I want you to meet, and Larry, of
course, will be there--"
Enid studied Kennedy. He was hesitating as though not sure whether to
accompany Manton or not. I never did learn what other course of action
had occurred to him.
But I did notice that the little star, with her pert, upturned face,
seemed more anxious to have Kennedy go along than she was to meet the
mysterious individual mentioned without name by Manton. For an instant
she was on the point of addressing him, flippantly, no doubt. Then, I
think she was rather awed at Craig's reputation.
All at once she shrugged her shoulders and turned to me, plucking my
sleeve, her expression brightening irresistibly. "You'll come,
too"--dimpling--"Jamie!"
VIII
LAWRENCE MILLARD
It struck me on the trip to Manton's apartment that the film people
were wholly unfeeling, were even uninterested in the death of Stella
Lamar except where it interfered with their business arrangements.
Werner excused himself and did not accompany us, on the score of the
complete realignment of production necessary to place Enid in Stella's
part. It seemed to me that he felt a certain relish in the problem,
that he was almost glad of the circumstances which brought Enid to him.
His last words to Manton were, to be sure to have Millard recast the
action of the scenes wherever possible, so as to give Enid the better
chance to display her own personality.
I marveled as I realized that the remains of Stella Lamar were scarcely
cold before these people were figuring on the star to take her place.
As Manton talked, the thought crossed my mind that such a man needed no
publicity manager. I dismissed the idea that he might be capable even
of murder for publicity. But at least it was an insight into some
methods of the game.
As our car mounted to the Concourse and turned Manhattanward I was
distinctly unhappy. Manton monopolized Enid completely, insisting upon
talking over everything under the sun, from the wardrobe she would need
in Stella's part and the best sort of personal advertising campaign for
her, to the first available evening when she could go to dinner with
him.
She sat in the rear seat, between Kennedy and the promoter, which did
not add to my sense of comfort. The only consoling feature from my
viewpoint was that I was admirably placed to study her, and that Manton
held her so engrossed that I had every opportunity to do so unnoticed.
Because she had overwhelmed me so completely I did nothing of the kind.
I knew we were riding with the most beautiful woman in New York, but I
did not know the color of her hair or eyes, or even the sort of hat or
dress she wore. In short I was movie-struck.
We stopped at last at a huge, ornate apartment house on Riverside Drive
and Manton led the way through the wide Renaissance entrance and the
luxurious marble hall to the elevator. His quarters, on the top floor,
facing the river, were almost exotic in the lavishness and barbaric
splendor of their furnishings. My first impression as we entered the
place was that Manton had purposely planned the dim lights of rich
amber and the clinging Oriental fragrance hovering about everything so
as to produce an alluring and enticing atmosphere. The chairs and wide
upholstered window seats, the soft, yielding divans in at least two
corners, with their miniature mountains of tiny pillows, all were
comfortable with the comfort one associates with lotus eating and that
homeward journey soon to be forgotten. There was the smoke of incense,
unmistakably. On a taboret were cigarettes and cigars and through heavy
curtains I caught a glimpse of a sideboard and decanters, filled and
set out very frankly.
A Japanese butler, whom Manton called Huroki, took our hats and
retreated with a certain emanating effluvium of subtlety such as I had
known only once before, when the Oriental attendant left me on the
occasion of my only visit to an opium den in Chinatown.
A moment later Millard, who had been waiting, rose to greet us.
I would have guessed him to be an author, I believe, had I met him at
random anywhere in the city. He affected all the professional marks and
mannerisms, and yet he did so gracefully. I noticed, in the little hall
where Huroki placed our headgear, a single-jointed Malacca stick, a
dark-colored and soft-brimmed felt hat, and a battered brief-case. That
was Millard, unquestionably. The man himself was tall and loose-limbed,
heavy with an appearance of slenderness. His face was handsome, rather
intellectual in spite of rather than because of large horn-rimmed
glasses. His mouth and chin showed strength and determination, which
was a surprise to me. In fact, in no way did he seem to reveal the
artist. Lawrence Millard was a commercial writer, a dreamer never.
First he greeted Enid, taking both of her hands in his. In this one
brief moment all my own little romance went glimmering, for I could not
blind myself to the softening of his expression, the welcoming light in
hers, the long interval in which their fingers remained interlaced.
And then another thought came to me, hastened, fed and fattened upon my
jealousy. The sealed testimony in the case of Millard vs. Millard!
Could Enid, by any chance, be concerned in that?
The next moment I dismissed the thought, or at least I thought I did
so. I tried to picture Enid's work on the Coast, to remember the short
time she had been in the East. It was possible Millard had known her
before she went to Los Angeles, but unlikely.
Millard next turned to Kennedy.
"I just learned of the tragedy a short while ago, Professor," he
exclaimed. "It is terrible, and so amazingly sudden, too! It--it has
upset me completely. Tell me, have you found anything? Have you
discovered any possible clue? Is there anything at all I can do to
help?"
"I would like to ask a few questions," Kennedy explained.
"By all means!"
He extended a hand to me and I found it damp and flabby, as though he
were more concerned than his manner betrayed. He faced Kennedy again,
however, immediately.
"Stella and I didn't make a go of our married life at all," he went on,
frankly enough. "I was very sorry, too, because I was genuinely fond of
her."
"How recently have you seen her?"
"Stella? Not for over a month--perhaps longer than that."
Manton took Enid by the arm. It was evidently her first visit to the
apartment and he was anxious to show her his various treasures.
Millard, Kennedy, and I found a corner affording a view out over the
Hudson. After Kennedy had described, briefly, the circumstances of
Stella's death, at Millard's insistence, he produced the note he had
found in her handbag. The author recognized it at once, without reading
it.
"Yes, I wrote that!" Then just a trace of emotion crept into his voice.
"I was too late," he murmured.
"What was it you wanted to say?" Kennedy inquired.
Millard's glance traveled to Manton and Enid, a troubled something in
his expression. I could see that the promoter was making the most of
his tete-a-tete with the girl, but she seemed perfectly at ease and
quite capable of handling the man, and I, certainly, was more disturbed
at the interest of Millard.
"I thought there was something about the business I ought to tell
Stella," he answered, finally. "Manton Pictures is pretty shaky."
"Oh! Then Manton wasn't talking for effect when he told Miss Faye that
the company was broke?"
"No, indeed! In fact, didn't Enid make her agreement with Manton
personally? That's what I advised her to do."
Kennedy nodded. "But is Manton himself financially sound?"
Millard laughed. "Lloyd Manton always has a dozen things up his sleeve.
He may have a million or he may owe a million." In the author's voice
was no respect for his employer. A touch of malice crept into his tone.
"Manton will make money for anyone who can make money for him," he
added, "that is, provided he has to do it."
Kennedy and I exchanged glances. This was close to an assertion of
downright dishonesty. At that moment Huroki stole in on padded feet, as
noiseless as a wraith.
"Yes, Huroki?" His master turned, inquiringly.
"Mr. Leigh," was the butler's announcement.
"Show him in," said Manton; then he hurried over to us. "Courtlandt
Leigh, the banker, you know."
I imagine I showed my surprise, for Kennedy smiled as he caught my
face. Leigh was a bigger man than Phelps, of the highest standing in
downtown financial circles. If Manton had interested Courtlandt Leigh
in moving pictures he was a wizard indeed.
It seemed to me that the banker was hardly in the apartment before he
saw Enid, and from that moment the girl engrossed him to the exclusion
of everything else. For Enid, I will say that she was a wonder. She
seemed to grasp the man's instant infatuation and immediately she set
about to complete the conquest, all without permitting him so much as
to touch her.
"You'll excuse us?" remarked Manton, easily, as he drew Phelps and Enid
away.
"See!" exclaimed Millard, in a low voice, frowning now as he watched
the girl. "Manton's clever! I've never known him unable to raise money,
and that's why I wanted Enid to have her contract with him personally.
If Manton Pictures blows up he'd put her in some other company."
"He has more than one?" This seemed to puzzle Kennedy.
"He's been interested in any number on the side," Millard explained.
"Now he's formed another, but it's a secret so far. You've heard of
Fortune Features, perhaps?"
Kennedy looked at me, but I shook my head.
"What is 'Fortune Features'?" Kennedy asked the question of Millard.
"Just another company in which Manton has an interest," he replied,
casually. "That was why I said I advised that Enid make her contract
personally with Manton. If Manton Pictures goes up, then he will have
to swing her into Fortune Features--the other Manton enterprise, don't
you see?" He paused, then added: "By the way, don't say anything
outside about that. It isn't generally known--and as soon as anyone
does hear it, everybody in the film game will hear it. You don't know
how gossip travels in this business."
Kennedy asked a few personal questions about Stella, but Millard's
answers indicated that he had not contemplated or even hoped for a
reconciliation, that his interest in his former wife had become
thoroughly platonic. Just now, however, he seemed unable to keep Manton
out of his mind.
"Oh, Manton's clever!" he said, confidentially to Kennedy, as he
watched the promoter deftly maneuvering Leigh and Enid into a position
side by side.
And indeed, as Millard talked, I began to get some inkling of how
really clever was the game which Manton played.
"Why," continued Millard, warming up to his story--for, to him, above
all, a good story was something that had to be told, whatever might
result from it--"I have known him to pay a visit some afternoon to Wall
Street--go down there to beard the old lions in their den. He always
used to show up about the closing time of the market.
"I've known him to get into the office of some one like Leigh or
Phelps. Then he'll begin to talk about his brilliant prospects in the
company he happens to be promoting at the time. If you listen to Manton
you're lost. I know it--I've listened," he added, whimsically.
"Well," he continued, "the banker will begin to get restless after a
bit--not at Manton, but at not getting away. 'My car is outside,'
Manton will say. 'Let me drive you uptown.' Of course, there's nothing
else for the banker to do but to accept, and when he gets into Manton's
car he's glad he did. I don't know anyone who picks out such luxurious
things as he does. Why, that man could walk right out along Automobile
Row, broke, and some one would GIVE him a car."
"How does he do it?" I put the question to him.
"How does a fish swim?" said Millard, smiling. "He's clever, I tell
you. Once he has the banker in the car, perhaps they stop for a few
moments at a club. At any rate, Manton usually contrives it so that, as
they approach his apartment, he has his talk all worked up to the point
where the banker is genuinely interested. You know there's almost
nothing people will talk to you longer about than moving pictures.
"Well, on one pretext or another, Manton usually persuades the banker
to step up here for a moment. Poor simp! It's all over with him then.
I'll never forget how impressed Phelps was with this place the first
time. There, now, watch this fellow, Leigh. He thinks this looks like a
million dollars. We're all here, playing Manton's game. We're his
menagerie--he's Barnum. I tell you, Leigh's lost, lost!"
I did not know quite what to make of Millard's cynicism. Was he trying
to be witty at Manton's expense? I noticed that he did not smile
himself. Although he was talking to us, his attention was not really on
us. He was still watching Enid.
"Then, along would happen Stella, as if by chance."
Millard paused bitterly, as though he did not quite relish the telling
it, but felt that Kennedy would pry it out of him or some one else
finally, and he might as well have it over with frankly.
"Yes," he said, thoughtfully, "but it all wasn't really Manton's fault,
after all. Stella liked the Bohemian sort of life too much--and Manton
does the Bohemian up here wonderfully. It was too much for Stella.
Then, when Phelps came along and was roped in, she fell for him. It was
good-by, poor Millard! I wasn't rapid enough for that crowd."
I almost began to sympathize with Millard in the association into
which, for his living's sake, his art had forced him. I realized, too,
that really the banker, the wise one from Wall Street, was the sucker.
Indeed, as Millard told it, I could easily account for the temptation
of Stella. To a degree, I suppose, it was really her fault, for she
ought to have known the game, shown more sense than to be taken in by
the thing. I wondered at the continued relations of Millard with
Manton, under the circumstances. However, I reflected, if Stella had
chosen to play the little fool, why should Millard have allowed that to
ruin his own chances?
What interested me now was that Millard did not seem to relish the
attentions which the banker was paying to Enid. Was Manton framing up
the same sort of game again on Leigh?
However, when Enid shot a quick glance at Millard in an aside of the
conversation, accompanied by a merry wink, I saw that Millard, though
still doubtful, was much more at ease.
Evidently there was a tacit understanding between the two.
Kennedy glanced over at me. Bit by bit the checkered history of Stella
Lamar's life was coming to light.
I began to see more clearly. Deserting Millard and fascinated by Manton
and his game, she had been used to interest Phelps in the company. In
turn she had been dazzled by the glitter of the Phelps gold. She had
not proved loyal even to the producer and promoter.
Perhaps, I reflected, that was why Millard was so apparently
complacent. One could not, under the circumstances, have expected him
to display wild emotion. His attitude had been that of one who thought,
"She almost broke me; let her break some one else."
That, however, was not his attitude toward Enid now. Indeed, he seemed
genuinely concerned that she should not follow in the same steps.
Later, I learned that was not all of the history of Stella. Fifteen
hundred dollars a week of her own money, besides lavish presents, had
been too much for her. Even Phelps's money had had no over-burdening
attraction for her. The world--at least that part of it which spends
money on Broadway, had been open to her. Jack Daring had charmed her
for a while--hence the engagement. Of Shirley, I did not even know.
Perhaps the masterful crime roles he played might have promised some
new thrill, with the possibility that they expressed something latent
in his life. At any rate, she had dilettanted about him, to the
amazement and dismay of Marilyn. That we knew.
The dinner hour was approaching, and, in spite of the urgent invitation
of Manton, Leigh was forced to excuse himself to keep a previous
appointment. I felt, though, that he would have broken it if only Enid
had added her urging. But she did not, much to the relief of Millard.
Manton took it in good part. Perhaps he was wise enough to reflect that
many other afternoons were in the lap of the future.
"What is Manton up to?" Kennedy spoke to Millard. "Is it off with the
old and on with the new? Is Phelps to be cast aside like a squeezed-out
lemon, and Leigh taken on for a new citrus fruit?"
Millard smiled. He said nothing, but the knowing glance was
confirmation enough that in his opinion Kennedy had expressed the state
of affairs correctly.
Millard hastened to the side of Enid at once and we learned then that
they had a theater engagement together and that Millard had the tickets
in his pocket. Once more I realized it was no new or recent
acquaintanceship between these two. Again I wondered what woman had
been named in Stella Lamar's divorce suit, and again dismissed the
thought that it could be Enid.
Kennedy took his hat and handed me mine. "We must eat, Walter, as well
as the rest of them," he remarked, when Manton led the way to the door.
I was loath to leave and I suppose I showed it. The truth was that
little Enid Faye had captivated me. It was hard to tear myself away.
In the entrance I hesitated, wondering whether I should say good-by to
her. She seemed engrossed with Millard.
A second time she took me clean off my feet. While I stood there,
foolishly, she left Millard and rushed up, extending her little hand
and allowing it to rest for a moment clasped in mine.
"We didn't have a single opportunity to get acquainted, Mr. Jameson,"
she complained, real regret in the soft cadences of her voice. "Won't
you phone me sometime? My name's in the book, or I'll be at the
studio--"
I was tongue-tied. My glance, shifting from hers because I was suddenly
afraid of myself, encountered the gaze of Millard from behind. Now I
detected the unmistakable fire of jealousy in the eyes of the author. I
presume I was never built to be a heavy lover. Up and down my spine
went a shiver of fear. I dropped Enid's hand and turned away abruptly.
IX
WHITE-LIGHT SHADOWS
"What do you think of it?" I asked Kennedy, when we were half through
our meal at a tiny restaurant on upper Broadway.
"We're still fumbling in the dark," he replied.
"There's the towel--"
"Yes, and almost any one on Mackay's list of nine suspects could have
placed it in that washroom."
"Well--" I was determined to draw him out. My own impressions, I must
confess, were gloriously muddled. "Manton heads the list," I suggested.
"Everyone says she was mixed up with him."
"Manton may have philandered with her; undoubtedly he takes a personal
interest in all his stars." Kennedy, I saw, remembered the promoter's
close attentions to Enid Faye. "Nevertheless, Walter, he is first and
foremost and all the time the man of business. His heart is in his
dollars and Millard even suggests that he is none too scrupulous."
"If he had an affair with Stella," I rejoined, "and she became
up-stage--the note you found suggested trouble, you know--then Manton
in a burst of passion--"
"No!" Kennedy stopped me. "Don't forget that this was a cold-blooded,
calculated crime. I'm not eliminating Manton yet, but until we find
some tangible evidence of trouble between Stella and himself we can
hardly assume he would kill the girl who's made him perhaps a million
dollars. Every motive in Manton's case is a motive against the crime."
"That eliminates Phelps, then, too. He nearly owned the company."
"Yes, unless something happened to outweigh financial considerations in
his mind also."
"But, good heavens! Kennedy," I protested. "If you go on that way
you'll not eliminate anyone."
"I can't yet," he explained, patiently. "It's just as I said. We're
fishing in the dark, absolutely. So far we haven't a single basic fact
on which to build any structure of hypothesis. We must go on fishing. I
expect you to dig up all the facts about these people; every odd bit of
gossip or rumor or anything else. I'll bring my science to play, but
there's nothing I can do except analyze Stella's stomach contents and
the spots on the towel; that is, until we've got a much more tangible
lead than any which have developed so far."
"Is there anything I can do to-night?"
"Yes!" He looked at his watch. "There are two men who were very close
to Miss Lamar. Jack Gordon was engaged to her, Merle Shirley seemed to
have been mixed up with her seriously. All the picture people have
night haunts. See what you can find about these two men."
"But I don't know where to find them offhand, and--"
"Both belong to the Goats Club, probably. Try that as a start."
I nodded and began to hurry my dessert. But I could not resist
questioning him.
"You think they are the most likely suspects?"
"No, but they were intimately associated with Miss Lamar in her daily
life and they are the two we have learned the least about."
"Oh!" I was disappointed. Then I rallied to the attack for a final
time. "Who is the most likely one. Just satisfy my curiosity, Craig."
He took a folded note from his pocket, opening it. It was the
memorandum from Manton's desk which I had mentioned. In a flash I
understood.
"Werner!" I exclaimed. "They said he was mixed up with her, too. He was
the first back and out of the car and he had time to clean a needle on
the towel, had a better opportunity than anyone else. More"--I began to
get excited--"he was lying on the floor close to her in the scene and
could have jabbed her with a needle very easily, and--and he was
extremely nervous when you questioned him, the most nervous of all,
and--and, finally, he had a motive, he wanted to get Enid Faye with
Manton Pictures, as this note shows."
"Very good, Walter." Kennedy's eyes were dancing in amusement. "It is
true that Werner had the best motive, so far as we know now, but it's a
fantastic one. Men don't commit cold-blooded murder just to create a
vacancy for a movie star. If Werner was going to kill Miss Lamar he
never would have written this note about Miss Faye."
"Unless to divert suspicion," I suggested.
He shook his head. "The whole thing's too bizarre."
"Werner was close to her in the dark. All the other things point to
him, don't they?"
"It's too bad everyone wasn't searched, at that," Kennedy admitted.
"Nevertheless, at the time I realized that Werner had had the best
opportunity for the actual performance of the crime and I watched him
very closely and made him go through every movement just so I could
study him. I believe he's innocent--at least as far as I've gone in the
case."
I determined to stick to my opinion. "I believe it's Werner," I
insisted.
"By the time you've dug up all the gossip about Gordon and Shirley you
won't be so sure, Walter."
I was, however. Kennedy was not as familiar with the picture world as
I. I had heard of too many actual happenings more strange and bizarre
and wildly fantastic than anything conceivable in other walks of life.
People in the film game, as they call it, live highly seasoned lives in
which everything is exaggerated. The mere desire to make a place for
Enid might not have actuated Werner, granting he was the guilty man.
Nevertheless it could easily have contributed. And it struck me
suddenly, an additional argument, that Werner, of all of them, was the
most familiar with the script. He had been able to cast himself for the
part of old Remsen. There was not a detail which he could not have
arranged very skillfully.
At the Goats Club I was lucky to discover a member whom I knew well
enough to take into my confidence by stating my errand. He was one of
the Star's former special writers and an older classman of the college
which had graduated Kennedy and myself.
"Merle Shirley is not a member here," he said. "As a matter of fact,
I've only just heard the name. But Jack Gordon's a Goat, worse luck.
That fellow's a bad actor--in real life--and a disgrace to us."
"Tell me all you know about him?" I asked.
"Well, to give you an example, he was in here just about a week ago. I
was sitting in the grill, eating an after-theater supper, when I heard
the most terrible racket. He and Emery Phelps, the banker, you know,
were having an honest-to-goodness fight right out in the lobby. It took
three of the men to separate them."
"What was it all about."
"Well, Gordon owes money right and left, not a few hundred or some
little personal debts like that, but thousands and thousands of
dollars. I got it from some of the other men here that he has been
speculating on the curb downtown, losing consistently. More than that,
he's engaged to Stella Lamar--you knew that?--and he's been blowing
money on her. Then they tell me his professional work is suffering,
that his recent screen appearances are terrible; the result of late
hours and worry, I suppose."
"The fight with Phelps was over money?"
"Of course! I figure that he kept drawing against his salary at the
studio until the film company shut down on him. Then probably he began
to borrow from Phelps, who's Manton's backer now, until the banker shut
down on him also. At any rate, Phelps had begun to dun him and it led
to the fight."
"That's all you know about Gordon?"
"Lord! Isn't it enough?"
I walked out of the club and toward Broadway, reflecting upon this
information. Could Gordon's debts have any bearing upon the case? All
at once one possibility struck me. He had been borrowing from Phelps.
Perhaps he had borrowed from Stella also. Perhaps that was the cause of
their quarrel. Perhaps she had threatened to make trouble--it was a
slender motive, but worth bringing to the attention of Kennedy.
My immediate problem, however, was to obtain some information about
Merle Shirley. At first I thought I would make the rounds of some of
the better-known cafes, but that seemed a hopeless task. Suddenly I
remembered Belle Balcom, formerly with the Star. I recollected a
previous case of Kennedy's where she and I had been great rivals in the
quest of news. I recalled a trip we had made to Greenwich Village
together. Belle knew more people about town than any other newspaper
woman. Now, for some months, she had been connected with Screenings, a
leading cinema "fan" magazine, and would unquestionably be posted upon
the photoplayers.
Luckily, I caught her at home.
"Bless your soul," she told me over the phone, in delight, "I've just
been aching for some one to take me out to-night. We'll go to the
Midnight Fads and if Shirley isn't there the head waiter will tell you
all I don't remember. It was a glorious fight."
She wouldn't say any more over the phone, but I was hugely curious. Had
there been another encounter with fists? And who had been involved?
When she met me finally, at the Subway station, and when we obtained an
out-of-the-way table at the Fads, she explained. It seemed that Shirley
had met Stella there a number of times and that Gordon, at last, had
got wind of it. Gordon first had come up himself, quietly, pleading
with Stella. She had been in a high humor and had refused even to
listen to him. Then he had become insulting. At that Shirley knocked
him down.
The head waiter, a witness of the affair, ordered Gordon put out, but
did not request Shirley or Stella to leave, because the other man had
been the aggressor without any question. After more than an hour Gordon
returned, quietly and unobtrusively, with another girl. From Belle's
description I knew it was Marilyn Loring. Taking another table, Marilyn
had stared at Shirley reproachfully while Gordon had glared at Stella.
Shirley put up with this for just about so long. As Belle described it,
his face gradually became more and more red and he controlled himself
with increasing difficulty. Stella, seeing the coming of the storm,
tried to get him to go. He refused. She threatened to leave him. He
paid no attention. All at once he boiled over and with great strides
walked over to Gordon and mauled him all over the place. The leading
man had no chance whatever in the hands of the irate Westerner. Several
waiters, attempting to intervene, were flung aside. Only when Shirley
began to cool off were they able to eject the two men. Both Stella and
Marilyn had left, separately, before that. Neither of the men or women
had been at the Fads since, or at least the head waiter, called over by
Belle, so informed us.
Unable to obtain any other facts of interest, I returned finally to the
apartment shared by Kennedy and myself. First he listened to my
account, plainly interested. Then, when I had concluded, he rose and
faced me rather gravely.
"It's getting more and more complicated, Walter," he exclaimed. "After
you left I remembered that there was one point of investigation I had
failed to cover--Miss Lamar's home here in the city. I got our old
friend, First-Deputy O'Connor, on the wire and learned that at the
request of Mackay, from Tarrytown, they had sent a man up to the place
and that just an hour or less before I called they had located and were
holding her colored maid. I hurried down to headquarters and questioned
the girl."
"Yes?" To me it sounded promising.
"The negress didn't know a thing so far as the crime is concerned,"
Kennedy went on, "but I gained quite an insight into the private life
of the star."
"You mean--"
"I mean I know the men who went to Miss Lamar's apartment, although
beyond the fact of her receiving them I can tell nothing, for she sent
the maid home at night; there were no maid's quarters."
"Their visits may have been perfectly innocent?"
"Of course! We can only draw conclusions."
"Who were the various callers?"
"Jack Gordon--"
"Her fiance!"
"Merle Shirley--"
"Shirley admitted it when you questioned him."
"Manton--"
"Everyone knows that!"
"Werner--" A side glance at me.
I said nothing. My expression spoke for me.
"And Emery Phelps!"
At that I did show surprise. Although Mackay had hinted at something of
the kind, I, for one, had not considered the banker seriously.
"Good heavens! Kennedy," I exploded. "She was mixed up with just about
every man connected with the company."
"Exactly!" As usual, he seemed calm and unconcerned.
I could regard the case only with increasing amazement--the bitter,
conflicting emotions of Manton and Phelps, of Daring, Shirley, and
Millard. With them all Stella had been the pretty trouble maker.
"How do you suppose they could all remain in the same company?" I
showed my surprise at the situation.
Kennedy pondered a moment, then replied:
"A moment's reflection ought to give you one answer. I think, Walter,
they were either under contract or they had their money in the company.
They couldn't break."
"I suppose so. What I wonder is, was Marilyn as jealous of Stella as
her screen character would make her in a story? She's the only one we
don't hear much about."
Kennedy did not seem, at least at present, to give this phase of it
anything like the weight he credited to the frenzied financial
relations the case was uncovering.
It was true, as I learned later, that Manton was at that very moment
doing perhaps as much as anyone else ever did to discredit the picture
game in Wall Street.
X
CHEMICAL RESEARCH
The following morning I found Kennedy up ahead of me, and I felt
certain that he had gone to the laboratory. Sure enough, I found him at
work in the midst of the innumerable scientific devices which he had
gathered during years of crime detection of every sort.
As usual, he was surrounded by a perfect litter of test tubes, beakers,
reagents, microscopes, slides, and culture tubes. He had cut out the
curious spots from the towel I had discovered and was studying them to
determine their nature. From the mass of paraphernalia I knew he was
neglecting no possibility which might lead to the hidden truth or
produce a clue to the crime.
"Have you learned anything yet?" I asked.
"Those brownish spots were blood, of course," was his reply as he
stopped a moment in his work. "In the blood I discovered some other
substance, though I can't seem to identify it yet. It will take time. I
thought it might be a drug or poison, but it doesn't seem to be--at
least nothing one might ordinarily expect."
"How about the other spots, not the Chinese yellow?"
"Another problem I haven't solved. I dissolved enough of them so that I
have plenty of material to study if I don't waste it. But so far I
haven't been able to identify the substance with anything I know.
There's a lot more work of elimination, Walter, before we're on the
road to the solution of this case. Whatever stained the towel was very
unusual. As near as I can make out the spots are of some protein
composition. But it's not exactly a poison, although many proteins may
be extremely poisonous and extremely difficult to identify because they
are of organic nature."
I was disappointed. It seemed to me that he had made comparatively
little progress so far.
"There's one thing," he added. "Samples of the body fluids of the
victim have been sent down by the coroner at Tarrytown and I have
analyzed them. While I haven't decided what it was that killed Stella
Lamar, I am at least convinced that it has something to do with these
towel spots. They are not exactly the same--in fact, I should say they
were complementary, or, perhaps better, antithetical."
"The mark wasn't made by the needle which scratched her, then?"
"That's what I thought at first, that the point used had been wiped off
on the towel. Then I decided that the spots had nothing to do with the
case at all. Now I believe there is some connection, after all."
"I--I don't understand it," I protested.
"It's very baffling," he agreed, absent-mindedly.
"If the towel wasn't used to clean the fatal needle," I went on, "then
it may have been used before they went out instead of afterward."
"Exactly. As a matter of fact, if I had not been so confused yesterday
by all the details of the case, by the many people involved, I would
have noticed at a glance that the blood spots on the towel could not
come from some one using it to wipe the needle. And any hypothesis that
it had been used out in Tarrytown was ridiculous, because Miss Lamar
was only scratched faintly and lost no blood. If I had been a little
more clever I might have been altogether too clever. I might possibly
have thrown the towel away, because there certainly was no logical
reason for connecting it with the crime."
"Just when do you suppose Stella was pricked?" I asked.
"That's a vital consideration. Just now I do not know the poison and so
cannot tell how quickly it acted." He began to put aside his various
paraphernalia. "Suppose we go at this thing by a process of deduction
rather than from the end of scientific analysis." He sat on a corner of
the bench. "What do we find?" he began.
"While I've been working here with the test tubes and the microscope
I've been trying to reconstruct what must have happened, trying to
trace out every action of Stella Lamar as nearly as it is possible for
us to do so. I don't think we need to go back of their arrival at the
house, for the present. They seem to have been there a long while
before the taking of the particular scene, since there were twelve
other scenes preceding and since it requires time to put up the
electric lights and make the connections, as well as to set the
cameras, take tests, rearrange the furniture, and all the rest of it.
"They arrived at the house in two automobiles; with the exception of
Phelps, who was there already, and Manton, who came in his own
limousine. That means that Miss Lamar had company on the trip out, the
principals probably riding with each other in one car. At the house
they were all more or less together. There were people about constantly
and it would seem as if there was small opportunity for anyone to
inflict the scratch which caused her death. I don't mean that it would
have been impossible to prick her. I mean that she would have felt the
jab of the point. In all likelihood she would have cried out and
glanced around. Take a needle yourself, sometime, Walter, and try to
duplicate the scratch on your own arm in such a way that you would not
be aware of it.
"So you see I'm counting upon some sort of exclamation from Miss Lamar.
If she were inoculated with the poison with other folks about, it is
sure some one would have remembered a cry, a questioning glance, a
quick grasp of the forearm--for the nerves are very sensitive in the
skin there--"
"No one did recall anything of the kind," I interrupted.
"It is from that fact that I hope to deduce something. Now let's follow
her, figuratively, to her little dressing room. This was a part of the
living room where the rest waited. It is not a certainty, but yet
rather a sure guess, that if she had received a scratch behind those
thin silk curtains her cry would have been heard. What is even more
plausible is that she would have hurried out, or at least put her head
out, to see who had pricked her.
"I made a very careful examination of that little alcove with the idea
that some artifice might have been used. It occurred to me that a
poisoned point could have been inserted in her belongings in some way
so that she would have brought about her own death, directly. To have
caught herself on a needle point in her bag, for instance, would not
have impressed her to the point of making a disturbance. She might have
checked her exclamation, in that case, because she would be blaming
herself.
"But I found nothing in her things, nor did I discover anything in the
library. It seems to me, therefore, that we must look for a direct
human agency."
A thought struck me and I hastened to suggest it. "Could some device
have been arranged in her clothes, Craig; something like the poison
rings of the Middle Ages, a tiny metal thing to spring open and expose
its point when pressed against her in the action of the scenes?"
"That occurred to me at the time. That's why I asked Mackay to send all
her clothes down here, every stitch and rag of them. I've gone over
everything already this morning. Not only have I examined the various
materials for stains, but I've tested each hook and eye and button and
pin. I've been very careful to cover that possibility."
"You think, then, she was scratched deliberately by some one during the
taking of the scenes?"
"If you've followed my line of reasoning you will see that we are
driven to that assumption. Perhaps later I will make tests on a given
number of girls of Stella's general age and type and temperament to
show that they will cry out at the unexpected prick of a fine needle.
It's illogical to expect that a cry from Miss Lamar, even an
exclamation, would have passed unnoticed except during the excitement
of actual picture taking."
Another inspiration came to me, but I was almost afraid to voice it. It
seemed a daring theory. "Could death have resulted from poison
administered in some other fashion, by something she had eaten, for
instance?" I ventured. "Couldn't the scratch be coincidental?"
Kennedy shook his head. "There's the value of our chemical analysis and
scientific tests. Her stomach contents showed nothing except as they
might have been affected by her weakened condition. From Doctor Blake's
report--and he found no ordinary symptoms, remember--and from my own
observation, too, I can easily prove in court that she was killed by
the mark which was so small that it escaped the physician altogether."
I turned away. Once more Kennedy's reasoning seemed to be leading into
a maze of considerations beyond me. How could the deductive method
produce results in a case as mysterious as this?
"Having determined that Miss Lamar received the inoculation during the
making of one of the scenes, as nearly as we can do so," Kennedy went
on, "suppose we take the scenes in order, one at a time, from the last
photographed to the first, analyzing each in turn. Remember that we
seek a situation where there is not only an opportunity to jab her with
a needle, but one in which an outcry would be muffled or inaudible."
I now saw that Kennedy had brought in the bound script of the story,
"The Black Terror," and I wondered again, as I had often before, at his
marvelous capacity for attention to detail.
"'The spotlight on the floor reveals the girl sobbing over the body of
the millionaire,'" he read, aloud, musingly. "H'mm! 'She screams and
cries out.' Then the others rush in."
For several moments Kennedy paced the floor of the laboratory, the
manuscript open in his hands.
"We rehearsed that, with Werner; and we questioned everyone, too. And
remember! Miss Lamar, instead of crying out as she was supposed to do,
just crumpled up silently. So"--thumbing over a page--"we work back to
scene twelve. She--she was not in that at all. Scene eleven--"
Slowly, carefully, Kennedy went through each scene to the beginning.
"Certainly a dramatic opening for a mystery picture," he remarked,
suddenly, as though his mind had wandered from his problem to other
things. "We must admit that Millard can handle a moving-picture
scenario most beautifully."
Whether it was professional jealousy or the thought of Enid, rather
than the memory of my own poor attempts at screen writing, I certainly
was in no mood to agree with Kennedy, for all that I knew he was
correct.
"Here!" He thrust the binder in my hands. "Read that first scene," he
directed. "Meanwhile I am going to phone Mackay to make sure he has had
the house guarded and to make double sure no one goes near the library.
We're going out to Tarrytown again, Walter, and in the biggest kind of
hurry."
"What's the idea, Craig?" Kennedy's occasional bursts of
mysteriousness, characteristic of him and often necessary when his
theories were only half formed and too chaotic for explanations, always
piqued me.
He did not seem to hear. Already he was at the telephone, manipulating
the receiver hook impatiently. "What a dummy I am!" he exclaimed, with
genuine feeling. "What--what an awful dummy!"
Knowing I would get nothing out of him just yet, I turned to the scene,
reading as he told me. At first I could not see where the detail
concerned Stella Lamar in any way. Then I came to the description of
her introductory entrance, the initial view of her in the film. The
lines of typewriting suddenly stood out before me in all their
suggestive clearness.
The spotlight in the hands of a shadowy figure roves across
the wall and to the portieres. As it pauses there the
portieres move and the fingers of a girl are seen on the
edge of the silk. A bare and beautiful arm is thrust through
almost to the shoulder and it begins to move the portieres
aside, reaching upward to pull the curtains apart at the
rings.
"You think there's something about the portieres--" I began.
Then I saw that Kennedy had his connection, that something disturbed
him, that some intelligence from the other end had caught him by
surprise.
"You say you were just trying to get me, Mackay? You've something to
tell me and you want me to come right out--you have summoned Phelps and
he's on his way from the city also--?"
"What happened?" I asked, as Kennedy hung up.
"I don't know, Walter. Mackay said he didn't want to talk over the
phone and that we had just time to catch the express."
"But--"
"Hurry!" He glanced about as if wondering whether any of his scientific
instruments would help him.
XI
FORESTALLED
On the train Kennedy left me, to look through the other cars, having
the idea that Phelps might be aboard also. But there were no signs of
the banker. We would reach Tarrytown first unless he had chosen to
motor out.
Mackay was waiting at the station to meet us and to take us to the
house. The little district attorney was obviously excited.
"Was the place guarded well last night?" asked Kennedy, almost before
we had shaken hands.
"Yes--that is, I thought it was. That's what I want to tell you. After
you left with Manton and Werner the rest of the company packed up and
pulled out in the two studio cars. I was a little in doubt what to do
about Phelps, but he settled it himself by announcing that he was going
to town. The coroner came and issued the permit to remove the body and
that was taken away. I think the house and the presence of the dead
girl and all the rest of it got on Phelps's nerves, because he was
irritable and impatient, unwilling to wait for his own car, until
finally I drove him to the station myself."
"Was anyone, any of those on our list of possible suspects at least,
alone in the room--or in the house?"
"Not while I was there," Mackay replied. "I took good care of that.
Then, when everyone was gone and while Phelps was waiting for me, I
detailed two of my deputies to stay on guard--one inside and one
outside--for the night. I thought it sufficient precaution, since you
had made your preliminary examination."
"And--" Kennedy nodded, seeking to hurry the explanation.
"And yet," added Mackay, "some one entered the house last night in
spite of us."
Kennedy fairly swore under his breath. He seemed to blame himself for
some omission in his investigation the previous afternoon.
"How did it happen?" I asked, rather excitedly.
"It was about three o'clock, the guards tell me. The man inside was
dozing in a chair before the living-room fireplace. He was placed so he
could command a view of the doorway to the library as well as the
stairs and reception hall. All at once he was awakened by a shot and a
cry from outside. He jumped up and ran toward the library. As he did so
the portieres bellied in toward him, as if in stiff sudden draught, or
as if some one had darted into their folds quickly, then out. With no
hesitation he drew his own weapon, rushing the curtains. There was no
one secreted about them. Then, with the revolver in one hand, he
switched on the lights. The room was empty. But one pair of French
windows at the farther end were wide open and it was that which had
caused the current of air. He ran over and found the lock had been
forced. It was not even an artistic job of jimmying."
"What about the deputy posted outside?" prompted Kennedy.
"That's the strange part of it. He was alert enough, but it's a big
house to watch. He swears that the first thing he knew of any trouble
was the sharp metallic click which he realized later was the sound made
by the intruder in forcing the catch of the French window. It was
pretty loud out in the quiet of a Tarrytown night.
"He started around from the rear and then the next thing he caught was
the outline of a shadowy slinking figure as a man dropped out of the
library. He called. The intruder broke into a run, darting across the
open space of lawn and crashing through the shrubbery without any
further effort at concealment. My man called again and began to chase
the stranger, finally firing and missing. In the shrubbery a sharp
branch whipped him under the chin just as he obtained a clear view of
the outlined figure of his quarry and as he raised his weapon to shoot
again. The revolver was knocked from his hand and he was thrown back,
falling to the ground and momentarily stunned. Whoever broke into the
library got away, of course."
"What did the intruder look like?" There was an eagerness in Kennedy's
manner. I grasped that the case was beginning to clarify itself in his
mind.
Mackay shook his head. "There was no moon, you know, and everything
happened swiftly.
"But was he tall or short or slender or stout--the deputy must have got
some vague idea of him at least."
"It was one of my amateur deputies," Mackay admitted, reluctantly. "He
thought the man was hatless, but couldn't even be sure of that."
"Were there footprints, or fingerprints--"